Monday Short Cuts
Notable quotables from Joe Biden, Chris Coons, Ben Sasse, and more.
Terrible answer: “No, they don’t.” —Joe Biden on whether “voters deserve to know his stance on packing the Supreme Court
The BIG Lie: "Look, the only court packing is going on right now — it’s going on with the Republicans packing the court now.” —Joe Biden
The BIG Lie II: “The American people have watched the Republicans packing the court for the past three and a half years, and they brag about it.” —Senator Dick Durbin
The BIG Lie III: “I’m going to be laying out the ways in which Judge Barrett’s views … are not just extreme, they’re disqualifying. It constitutes court-packing.” —Senator Chris Coons
Fake news: “[Montana Senate candidate Steve] Bullock said that if Coney Barrett was confirmed, he would be open to measures to depoliticize the court, including adding judges to the bench, a practice critics have dubbed packing the courts.” —Associated Press (Packing the court, which Democrats want to do, IS politicizing the court because it adds justices as opposed to just filling vacancies.)
From the Department of Corrections: “This story has been edited to make clear that it is Bullock’s opinion, rather than a fact.” —AP, which changed its coverage to this: “Bullock said that if Coney Barrett was confirmed, he would be open to measures including adding justices to the bench, a practice critics have dubbed packing the courts.”
The BIG Rebuttal: “Claiming that court-packing is filling open vacancies — that obviously isn’t what court-packing means.” —Senator Ben Sasse
Flashback: “President Roosevelt clearly had the right to send to the United States Senate and the United States Congress a proposal to pack the court. It was totally within his right to do that. He violated no law. He was legalistically, absolutely correct. But it was a bonehead idea.” —Joe Biden … in 1983
Upright: “It’s grotesque that Vice President Biden won’t answer that really basic question [about court packing]. And it isn’t just one branch of government. What they’re really talking about — or refusing to talk about — is the suicide bombing of two branches of government. What they’re talking about is blowing up the deliberative structure of the United States Senate by abolishing the filibuster and making it possible to turn the Senate into just another House of Representatives where every two years by a 51-49 majority major portions of American life change. And they’re going about doing that to pack the Supreme Court.” —Ben Sasse
Alpha jackass: “The terrorist Trump must be defeated, must be destroyed, must be devoured at the ballot box and then he and his enablers and his supporters and his collaborators and the Mike Lees and the William Barrs and the Sean Hannitys and the Mike Pences and the Rudy Giulianis and the Kyle Rittenhouses and the Amy Coney Barretts must be prosecuted and convicted and removed from our society.” —Keith Olbermann
And last: “If Mr. Biden has this thing in the bag and Democrats are on the cusp of sweeping this election, why are [the Obamas], the two most popular standard-bearers in the party, so angry? And so afraid?” —Charles Hurt
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